De Blasio still backs embattled NYCHA chief Shola Olatoye

Shola Olatoye is under increasing pressure to resign from critics who say she covered up NYCHA's failure to inspect homes for lead. (Susan Watts/New York Daily News)

Heckuva job, Shola.

Mayor de Blasio is still standing by his New York City Housing Authority Chairwoman Shola Olatoye — and channeling a president he doesn't quote very often in doing so.

Advertisement

"As George W. Bush once famously said, 'I'm the decider,'" de Blasio told reporters Tuesday. "Hold me responsible for the decision. I am responsible. She is the right person to lead."

De Blasio has repeatedly defended Olatoye as the authority she leads has come under fire for years of failing to conduct lead inspections in public housing apartments — and for falsely claiming on federal documents they'd been done even when she knew they had not.

“I am convinced she is the person that can move us forward,” Mayor de Blasio said of Olatoye. (Todd Maisel/New York Daily News)

"There are a couple areas where things didn't happen the way they should, no doubt. And some of that was people who below her did the wrong thing and they're not there anymore," de Blasio said. "But I am convinced she is the person that can move us forward."